- Sociologist | 1942 -
I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians, but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty, who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver, but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him.
John Shelton Reed
CarPeopleThinkSomeoneYouNice
If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and most Southerners don't live there any more.
LiveCareYouPoorRaceMore
But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.
BelieveSayPoorOwnThingsStill
I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like, 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance, but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me.
KnowledgeIgnoranceMeBelieveSound
Any Southern nationalist movement, especially one that wraps itself in the Confederate flag, is going to be viewed with suspicion, given the historical record.
FlagMovementHistoricalGoingGiven
Southern barbecue is the closest thing we have in the U.S. to Europe's wines or cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbecue changes.
DriveBarbecueChangesEuropeMiles
Dixie has just fallen to pieces. There are little patches of Dixie. But even in the heart of Dixie - in Alabama - Dixie is slipping. They've stopped using the word in commercial listings.
HeartLittlePiecesAlabamaJust
The nature of the South is changing faster than the stereotypes are. Much of the South now looks like San Jose. Is it still southern?
NatureLooksStereotypesNowStill
I don't think massification and globalization and all those other 'izations' are necessarily hostile to regionalism.
ThinkGlobalizationThoseHostile
I've occasionally wished I had Caller ID. Even telemarketers, I hate to hang up on them. I try to explain I'm not interested, but they have all these canned responses so I end up having to hang up on them anyway.
HateEndTryExplainUpHang
As long as there are Japanese tourists, there will be a market for the Old South.
LongWillOldJapaneseMarketSouth
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